Successful Online Marketing Strategies

Online retail sales for 2012 were $225 billion and it is estimated that e-commerce revenues will grow 15% per annum for the foreseeable future. It is very important for businesses to have an online presence and a marketing strategy that will capture the attention of the audience and keep them interested.

With the advent of tablet computing, the cloud and the smart phone it is becoming easier for the consumer to view and buy products online thus making the marketing strategy and the visibility of online content very important. To put it simply, if content is not seen then it will not sell.

While costly advertising campaigns do well in the off-line world, there are several creative ways to market a business online without breaking the bank:

Interact with niche blogs

It would great to be on the front page of a major news or magazine website but this is very difficult and costly to achieve. A better strategy is to reach out to several top niche blogs and find ways to add value to the blog while promoting products or services. There are several ways that to do this:

Offer to write free guest posts that will be informative to the niche blog’s readers.

Create joint content with the owner that shares authority and provides the reader with quality information pertaining to the niche but also demonstrates your expertise.

Give the blog owner some samples to give away on the blog. Not only will this help the blog owner retain their readers but it also provides free marketing from the ‘giveaway’.

Invite the owner of the blog to write some guest posts on your website.

Social Media Groups

Several of the top social media sites allow you to setup and maintain groups. By creating a vibrant group full of professional information and giving your readers a network to discuss problems and ideas, you also are able to drive traffic and ultimately increase revenue by being an authority in your group.

The key is subtlety; you are not creating the group to sell products or services. The group is there to help your customers find information, prove you knowledge of the niche but also provide you with important feedback on the requirements of the consumer. The group should be a helpful resource that will gain readers over time.

Searchable headlines and keywords

If you create well written quality content that has searchable headings and sub-headings that contains important keywords then it is likely that you will attract organic traffic from the top search engines. This process is called search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is one of the most important aspects of creating online content and is one of the best ‘marketing’ tools available as it helps your articles and websites rank highly on search engines. There are some simple SEO tips that can help most online marketing campaigns:

Searchable headlines – try and think what your consumer will type into a search engine to find your product or service then enter this phrase on Google. Look at the sites that are listed in the search results – if your website provides better information, is better presented and has more value than these websites then it is likely that you will rank higher than them.

Pictures – a top quality picture will often say more than a few paragraphs of words. Placing quality pictures throughout your website will enhance the user experience and help keep the reader on your page. Additionally you may find that readers will share your picture on sites like Pinterest thus adding an extra social element to your marketing campaign.

Online Videos

Promotional videos can often be very successful marketing tools. Creating a professional video is easy with the use of cheap video recorders available or smart phones.

The key to creating a successful video are:

Searchable headlines – as with headlines for articles, it is very important to create titles that viewers are likely to search for.

Simple and short – don’t try and do too much in one video – it’s better to have a dozen targeted videos rather than one very long video. Generally the viewer wants to find targeted information quickly, so having a thrity second or one minute video that provides all the information is better than having a five minute video where the viewer has to search for the information.

Interaction – you don’t simply want to provide information on the video, you want the viewer to interact with you. Give the viewer the option to subscribe to your video channel or click through to your website.

There are several avenues to explore when posting your videos online. Youtube is the most well known site for videos with millions of viewers daily, but it is saturated with sellers. Other options include article sites that give you the ability to upload videos and add a full article – a good example of this is Hubpages.

Conclusion

The key to a successful marketing campaign is ensuring that you capture the audience within the first ten to fifteen seconds. If you don’t do that then you will lose the reader. High quality content that portrays a message simply and easily, that is well written and attractive is more likely to grab the attention of the reader.

I'm the Founder and CEO at FullTraffic. Since 2005, FullTraffic has evolved to become one of the most important Traffic providers world wide for small to medium sized businesses.
http://federicoeinhorn.com - Read more stories from Federico Einhorn.